Work Text:
Alice is left to wander the courtyard just before the ceremony.
Not alone, exactly. She rarely is allowed to be. But unwatched enough to feel private.
She stands awkwardly at the top of the stone steps, fingers pinching at the sleeves of the white garment they had dressed her in. The fabric is soft, thin, almost painfully clean. It falls all the way to her ankles in a pale cascade, delicate embroidery stitched into the cuffs like winding branches or veins.
Communion white.
Baptism white.
Sacrifice white.
The sisters had brushed her hair until it fell smooth down her back, sister Elizabeth had even pressed scented oil lightly against her wrists while murmuring soft scripture Alice had been too distracted to follow. Now she smells faintly of myrrh and rainwater.
The evening air is warm against her skin as she steps into the garden courtyard, gravel crunching softly beneath her shoes. And she sees her.
Sabine sits atop one of the old stone overlooking the countryside beyond the asylum grounds. The setting sun burns gold around her silhouette.
Her wings are spread over the stone in a relaxed posture, Not fully spread in display, Resting.
Immense pale feathers glow softly beneath the dying sunlight, layered like sheets of ivory and cream. The breeze shifts through them lazily, the sight alone still feels impossible even now. It still steals the breath from Alice’s lungs every single time.
Sabine doesn’t turn immediately. Alice thinks maybe she knew she was there before she even arrived, she has come to think she always does, able to pinpoint her location anytime.
Slowly, Sabine tilts her head slightly over her shoulder. White hair catches gold, almost like a Halo. Her expression softens almost instantly upon seeing her, Alice loves it when she does that, she ought to tell her before she can´t, just in case.
There it is again—that unbearable calmness she carries everywhere with her. Not coldness. Never coldness.
“They took their time with you, it would seem” Sabine says softly.
Alice snorts. “I was being spiritually exfoliated.”
A smile ghosts across Sabine’s mouth.
Alice carefully makes her way across the courtyard toward her, lifting the hem of the dress dramatically before the gravel can dirty it.
“What do you think?” she asks, gesturing toward herself once she reaches the wall.
Sabine looks at her properly then. And Alice immediately regrets asking, her penetratingly calm gaze is tortuous, no detail could ever escape an angel. Even when Sabine’s attention has always felt terrifyingly gentle.
Her pale eyes move slowly over the white fabric, the brushed hair, the oil shining faintly against Alice’s skin.
The sunset catches against the lighter markings scattered across Sabine’s throat and wrists—those strange almost-white patches that looked less like skin and more like moonlight pressed into flesh.
“The sisters prepared you beautifully,” Sabine says quietly.
“I mean seriously,” she huffs. “This has to be the angel equivalent of extremely provocative lingerie.”
Sabine goes very still for exactly one second. Then she lowers her head slightly into one hand, shoulders shaking with a soft laugh. Alice beams immediately.
“Oh my God, it is.”
Sabine looks back at her, pale eyes bright with restrained amusement.
“You are so naughty.” She laughs again.
Affectionate in a way that makes warmth spread slowly up Alice’s neck.
“You can laugh?” she says.
Sabine lifts one pale brow. “Occasionally.”
“That’s crazy. I thought they would correct that during general angel orientation.”
Another quiet laugh. Alice feels deliriously drunk on those small victories.
She steps closer until she can lean her elbows against the stone beside Sabine. The wings twitch faintly behind her with the movement. Up close, Alice can see individual feathers stirring in the wind.
“So?” Alice asks after a moment. “What’s the verdict?”
Sabine studies her again, calmer this time.
“There is no need to feel nervous.”
Alice makes a face. “You think?”
“You hide fear with irreverence.”
“I hide everything with irreverence.”
Sabine hums softly like she already knew that. Alice looks down at herself again, tugging once more at the sleeves. Sabine’s smile lingers.
The sunset deepens around them, gold slipping slowly toward amber across the stone courtyard. For a while neither of them speaks.
Alice leans quietly against the wall beside her, shoulder almost brushing Sabine’s arm. That space between them has always felt strangely alive. Eventually Alice exhales softly.
“Am I allowed to say I’m scared?”
Sabine turns toward her immediately. Something inside Alice tightens painfully at that.
“You are allowed,” Sabine says softly, before continuing; “It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed… Deuteronomy 31:8, if it’s any comfort.” She cited.
The wind moves softly through the garden trees. Somewhere deeper in the grounds, bells begin tolling. Its time.
Alice sighs, “Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken. Psalm 55:22”
Sabine looks at her fondly then. “You have been doing some scriptures reading. That good, blessed be.”
Alice scoffs. “Well, it’s not like I’ve got an endless amount of entertainment to pick and choose from, do I?”
Sabine is silent for a moment. They are both openly ignoring the calling bells now. Whatever this fragile bit of peace they are sharing now, Alice does not wish to let go of.
Finally:
“It will help you.” Sabine says.
Alice laughs weakly through her nose. “That’s not reassuring at all.”
“I know.”
The honesty of it hurts more than lying would have.
“You’ve seen this before, haven’t you?”
The question settles heavily between them. Sabine’s wings shift once behind her. Not defensive. Wounded. Alice immediately regrets asking.
But Sabine does not look away.
“I have,” she says softly.
The word is almost lost beneath the wind.
Alice’s chest aches suddenly with that same old grief she still cannot name.
“You always say things like that,” she whispers. “Like I’m supposed to remember them.”
Sabine’s expression changes then. Alice sees the glimmer of it. Something ancient and exhausted slipping beneath composure for just a moment.
“You remember more than you think, Alice.” Sabine says quietly.
The bells continue ringing in the distance.
Alice looks at her then really looks at her—
the white hair glowing softly in the dying light,
the enormous wings,
the pale fractured markings across holy skin,
the calmness held together above raw power.
And for one terrifying second—
She feels it again, that déjà vu feeling that might as well cut deeper than a knife, clean slice right through her soul-
A bounty of unbearable longing overspilling the crevices of her heart, accompanied by the horrifying certainty that losing Sabine once had nearly destroyed her.
The feeling vanishes to smoke before she can fully catch it, finger running through the void.
Alice looks away sharply, as if struck.
“…I think that’s the scariest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
Sabine’s gaze softens with devastating tenderness.
“I know.”